Sarah Fakler, who will lead her nationally-ranked Xavier College Prep team of Phoenix into the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) Southwest Regional this Saturday, has a problem.

“She has trouble holding back,” said Gators’ coach Dave Van Sickle, one of the squad’s two head coaches along with Jeff Messer, an exercise physiologist. “We’ve been working with her. But when the gun goes off, she forgets everything and just sprints to the front.”

Fakler, who turned 18 in September, admits to her impatience. “I never want to take it easy. I like to get out fast no matter what the competition,” said Fakler, who won her third straight state Division I championship on Nov. 3 by 48 seconds. Her 5K time was 18:03 and Xavier, ranked No. 3 in the country in the latest Running Times Super 25, won its sixth straight team title and tenth overall.

Fakler’s zest for speed may be driven as much by big ideas and rich imagery as from irrational exuberance. At Xavier, she was chosen for a “Great Books” honors program in which the students do extra reading, write reports and discuss noted works of literature after school. “Sarah’s a total bookworm,” said Van Sickle.

When you combine the transcendence of running with themes from classics like “Moby Dick,” one of Sarah’s favorites, the result can be an acute sensitivity to her environment. No wonder she can’t stop herself from running fast.

“It feels effortless,” Fakler said, of when she’s on top of a race. “Like you don’t have to think about anything, can’t hear anything, you see everything in detail but not all at once. It’s surreal. It’s… running.”

With an eagerness to be in sync with the elements, Fakler had no problem getting up at 4 a.m. and training in the Arizona darkness all summer while afternoon temperatures in Phoenix climbed above 110 degrees. Fakler, who will do her college running at the University of Virginia, spearheaded the team effort to make that commitment. “The freshmen have a little trouble with it,” Fakler said. “You have to go to bed early to get up early. If you go to bed at 8, then running at 5 a.m. is the new normal.”

Running has been perfectly normal for Fakler since grade school when she ran for the Phoenix Bobcats, an age-group club. Her older sister Catherine joined her. The two girls were on the Xavier squad together before Catherine graduated in 2011. Catherine currently runs for Xavier University in New Orleans. A third Fakler sister, Erin, a junior on the high school track squad, is one of the state’s best discus throwers.

Xavier is an all-girls Catholic school, noted for its academic rigor, which draws students from all over Phoenix. Van Sickle, in his 23rd year of coaching, said, “We get disciplined athletes whose families choose Xavier for the academics. That kind of youngster fits the cross-country mold.”

With Van Sickle and Messer, a member of the exercise physiology department at Mesa Community College and a noted clinician, working together, the Xavier girls benefit from a wealth of experience and expertise. The coaches also have to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning all summer. “We do our best to make them accountable,” said Van Sickle.

The result has been quite a run for Fakler and her teammates. After winning the 2011 state cross-country title, Fakler placed ninth in the Southwest Regional to lead the Gators to second place and a berth in the NXN championship in Portland, Ore. Xavier placed eighth in the field of 22 teams. Fakler finished 22nd among team-scoring runners, 48th overall.

Last May, as a junior, Fakler, 5’5” and 110 pounds, won the state Division 1 1600m in 4:58.63 and 3200m in a PR 10:33.45. She also swept those events as a sophomore, and ran her 1600m PR of 4:54.39 that season. This fall, Fakler has paced two big Xavier victories over top California schools. In September, Xavier defeated visiting Great Oak, California’s leading team, at the Desert Twilight meet in the Phoenix area and Fakler triumphed by 33 seconds. In October, Xavier traveled to California for the huge Mount San Antonio College meet and won the girls individual sweepstakes team race over several of the state’s best. Fakler placed fifth.

This Saturday, on the same course where Desert Twilight was contested, Fakler should be a Southwest individual contender with Xavier a prohibitive team favorite over Monarch and Fort Collins of Colorado and Davis of Utah.

“I’m trying to work on pushing the last half of the race,” said Fakler. Push the first half. Push the second half. Sounds like a plan.